Q&A 2 How do I compare GDP trends across EAC countries and the USA?

2.1 Explanation

A line chart makes it easy to compare the GDP growth of multiple countries over time. Since GDP is measured in current US$, the USA’s scale will dwarf EAC economies — but this highlights the contrast in economic size.

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2.2 SQL Approach

If you have this dataset loaded into MySQL (table: gdp_data), you can query Kenya’s GDP trend like:

Note Country Code

MariaDB [cdi_economics]> SELECT DISTINCT country FROM gdp_wdi ORDER BY country;
+---------+
| country |
+---------+
| BI      |
| CD      |
| KE      |
| RW      |
| SO      |
| SS      |
| TZ      |
| UG      |
| US      |
+---------+
9 rows in set (0.032 sec)

-- Remove the old table completely
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS gdp_wdi;
CREATE DATABASE cdi_economics;
USE cdi_economics;

CREATE TABLE gdp_wdi (
  country CHAR(3),
  year INT,
  gdp_usd_current DOUBLE
);

LOAD DATA LOCAL INFILE '/Users/tmbmacbookair/Dropbox/GITHUB_REPOs/cdi-economics/data/gdp_wdi_EAC_USA_2000_2024.csv'
INTO TABLE gdp_wdi
FIELDS TERMINATED BY ','
ENCLOSED BY '"'
LINES TERMINATED BY '\n'
IGNORE 1 LINES
(country, year, gdp_usd_current);

-- Query Kenya's GDP trend
SELECT year, gdp_usd_current
FROM gdp_wdi
WHERE country = 'KE'
ORDER BY year;